


Gaming Nostalgia

by nychus



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV, Gen, Pre-Relationship, Slice of Life, spyro the dragon - Freeform, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 03:23:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16631951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nychus/pseuds/nychus
Summary: Noctis and Ignis used to play Spyro the Dragon all the time when they were kids. Now that there is a remake, Noctis is using it to his advantage.





	Gaming Nostalgia

Things had been weird between Noctis and Ignis as of late. Not a bad weird, just a weird. They were flirting with each other, in subtle ways to be sure, but it was flirting. If it had been anyone else, Noctis wouldn’t have thought much about it. Gladio was a natural flirt and Noctis was often asked if he and Prompto were dating due to their interactions with each other.

But Ignis, Ignis was a different breed entirely. The thought of him flirting was enough to short-circuit Noctis’s brain and sometimes he wondered if he was actually seeing these things or just hoping he was.

The shy smiles, the lingering touches, the accidental bumps into each other…they were there, Noctis was positive. He was also pretty sure he had started down this road and was dragging Ignis with him. Ignis was willingly being dragged though, because Ignis didn’t do anything he didn’t want to do and if he didn’t want this, he’d have put a stop to it long ago.

The problem was that whenever Noctis saw Ignis, it was almost always in the context of work and duty. Even when Ignis came to the apartment, it was to drop something off, maybe fix dinner and help with homework, but he was always gone too soon. Noctis needed some reason to get Ignis over just because and after a few weeks of trying to think of something, he formed the perfect plan.

It was one of the few Saturday nights that neither were busy with work or training or something else. Noctis invited Ignis over, said he had something to show him, and also said he’d brought some sushi home from work. The good stuff, he promised, not anything he had made. Ignis said he’d be over soon and with a smile, Noctis got everything ready.

One of Noctis’s favorite things about Ignis was that he always knocked and waited to be let into the apartment. He had his own key, and would use it if need be, but unlike just about everyone else who had a key to his place, he allowed Noctis to dictate when to let him in.

They ate first and then Noctis settled them on the couch, to which Ignis asked, “So what do you have to show me?”

With a big grin, Noctis said, “This,” and he turned on the television to a game’s title screen.

Ignis couldn’t help but laugh as he looked between the screen and Noctis, “Spyro the Dragon?”

“Yeah! They remade all three games and it just came out. I thought we could play it and see what we remembered and how it’s changed.”

Spyro the Dragon had been the only video game that Noctis could ever interest Ignis in when they were children. He didn’t know why, but something about the little purple dragon spoke to child Ignis and they would spend hours playing and replaying the game. They knew the first game inside and out, while the other two were played multiple times, but never to the same extent as the first.

After the incident with the Marilith, it was one of the few things that they could do together until Noctis was better.

It had been years since either had thought about the game, let alone play it, so Noctis was interested to see how much they could remember.

“Amazing,” Ignis said. “Have you played any?”

“Nope, was waiting for you. Shall we?”

“We shall.”

Noctis started up the game and they watched the opening cutscene; a beauty in all of its high-definition glory. When the game officially started, Noctis took some time to check out the controls and laughed that it played just like the original. He then released the first dragon and their journey began.

At first, neither said anything as Noctis pranced through the level, too in awe at how pretty it was and how much it seemed like the original. But then Noctis went through the first portal.

“What are you doing?” Ignis asked, aghast.

“Uh…playing the game?” he couldn’t say he was sure as to this sudden change in tone.

“You went into a new area without collecting all the gems!”

“I…what? Really?” he laughed. “I thought you’d grow out of that.”

“One does not grow out of enjoying the aesthetic of round numbers,” Ignis huffed.

Noctis rolled his eyes, “Look, it was just the homeworld, I’ve got to go back. I’ll get the gems.”

“Hmph, well, just be sure you get them all in this level before you leave.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Noctis muttered as he charged head first into an angry bull.

He finished the level with 100% completion and returned to the homeworld where he made sure to grab all the gems in the area he was in before heading back through the tunnel. Ignis was curious to see if they could access flight level by the waterfall, something that hadn’t been available in the original game until much later. Neither were expecting it to work, but as soon as Noctis hopped on the first stone, it lit up, as did the following four. With everything lit, the flight world became available and both just stared in disbelief for a second before Noctis went in.

He then proceeded to Fail spectacularly several times before he finally managed to get everything destroyed in a single flight. There was something a little off about the controls that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but with each crash or time’s up, he grew more and more frustrated. Ignis started rubbing circles on his back to calm him down some.

One of the most frustrating things about the original Spyro was that it was so easy to miss just one or two gems and have no idea where to find them. There’s a mechanic in the third game you can earn where Sparx (the dragonfly/health meter) can point towards missing gems, but that was the third game. Noctis became so frustrated in one level that he was ready to give up finding those last couple and Ignis had to physically pull the controller from Noctis’s hand so that he could look for the final gems.

During the struggle, they found out that Sparx had the gem finding ability, but both thought that was dumb and refused to use it in the first game. They had always managed to collect all the gems before and they were going to keep doing it their way and not make use of a mechanic from a later game.

When the first world was complete, they headed towards the balloonist when Noctis thought to check the guidebook. Everything was 100% and then they spotted it. A button that took them to a skill point screen. This screen told them what world the skill point was in and what the action was to earn it (vague as it may be). Noctis almost wished he hadn’t opened the book because Ignis insisted they get the skill points before heading to the next world.

In the second homeworld, Noctis quickly bypassed everything until he could find the enemies that mooned you in the first game. If they weren’t in the remake, he was gonna quit then and there, but he was happily mooned before handing the controller to Ignis. They always switched players for the homeworlds. If Noctis did the first, then Ignis would do the second, Noctis third, and so on. On the next playthrough, Ignis would do the first and they’d switch that way.

Ignis’s style of play hadn’t changed at all over the years. He was meticulous about everything and refused to entertain the idea of starting one of the side worlds until he had 100% in the homeworld. Noctis eventually grew bored of Ignis looking around every corner just to be sure he hadn’t missed something and laid down on the couch, using Ignis’s lap for a pillow. On loading screens, Ignis would card his fingers through Noctis’s hair, much to the prince’s delight.

As they played, they had so much fun reminiscing about their childhood. Spyro had always held a special place in their hearts. Not only was it the only game Ignis would actually play, but it was a game that they figured out all by themselves. They didn’t know of or have access to online game guides and if Ignis wanted his perfect scores, they had to stand around and figure out how to get things done. Which they did. The could remember spending hours on a single level trying to work out the right sequence of things to get where they needed to go, but by the Six did they work it out.

While playing this round, they figured out pretty quickly that one of their tricks was truly a shortcut and no matter how hard Ignis tried, he could not recreate what he had always done in the original. It involved using a supercharge ramp to get to another ramp at speed to glide to a platform way off in the distance. Before he had always run the supercharge and made a sharp turn to the right to hit the ramp and get there. He couldn’t do that now, it was physically impossible. He and Noctis spent several minutes and many lives not only figuring that one out (Ignis tried multiple times to be sure he wasn’t doing something wrong) but then they had to figure out a way to actually run it like it was supposed to be done, using multiple supercharges and getting on the right ramps.

Ignis eventually managed, but he was cross that he had to figure out something new when the old way had worked just fine.

They played through the night, not once entertaining the idea that they could save their progress and come back to it later. They wanted to complete the game, all 120% of it. It was after three in the morning when they finally got to the last cutscene, having defeated Gnasty Gnorc, saved all the dragons, and collected all the treasure.

“This feels just as good as the first time we completed it,” Noctis said with a tired smile.

“Agreed.” Ignis yawn big and loud before saying, “We are going to be worthless tomorrow…er, today.”

“Hmm. It’s a good thing we have the day off. We can sleep as late as we want.”

Silence fell for a few moments and Noctis finally decided it was time to get up and head to bed. Standing, he stretched the kinks out of his back with a yawn similar to what Ignis had just done. He then looked at Ignis and said, “Come on, let’s go to bed.” When Ignis raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to surely spout nonsense about propriety, Noctis said, “Come on. We’d always play Spyro and then fall asleep in bed.”

“We were children, Noct.”

“Technically, we still are,” Noctis grinned. “We aren’t seen as adults in the eye of the law until we’re twenty. Come on. Bed.”

He grabbed a stuttering Ignis by the hand and hauled him to his feet. He then dragged his poor friend into his bedroom where he dug around for the largest pair of sweats he owned and tossed them over. They then took turns in the bathroom and Noctis was all but asleep by the time he managed to drag himself into bed where he promptly curled around Ignis. He could feel Ignis tense immediately but after a few seconds, his body relaxed and he put an arm around Noctis and leaned his face into dark hair.

It was a good evening, to put it mildly. They continued to dance around their flirtation for some time longer, but this little video game date that Noctis had set up was certainly the start of what would become an everlasting relationship. All thanks to a little, purple dragon.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in love with the new Spyro Trilogy Reignited. It is love! Spyro was such a big part of my ~~childhood~~ high school, early college days that it's not even funny. It was always my go to game when I needed something to cheer me up or relieve boredom or whatever.
> 
> I thought that it might be something that Ignis might actually like enough to play with Noctis when young, so I ran with it. I am Ignis. It is almost physically painful if I don't collect all the things before heading to the next world.


End file.
